Millions of people all over the world use the
word OK. In fact, some people say the word is used more often than any other word in
the world. OK means all right or acceptable. It expresses agreement or approval. You
might ask your brother, "Is it okay if I borrow your car?” Or if someone asks
you to do something, you might say, “Okay, I will.” Still, language experts do
not agree about where the word came from. Some people say it came from the Native
American Indian tribe known as the Choc
taw. The Choctaw word okeh means the
same as the American word okay. Experts say early explorers in the American West
spoke the Choctaw language in the nineteenth century. The language spread across the country.
But many people dispute this. Language expert Allen Walker Read wrote about the word OK in
reports published in the nineteen sixties. He said the word began being used in the eighteen
thirties. It was a short way of writing a different spelling of the words “all correct.”
Some forei
gn-born people wrote “all correct” as “o-l-l k-o-r-r-e-c-t,” and used the letters
O.K. Other people say a railroad worker named Obadiah Kelly invented the
word long ago. They said he put the first letters of his names -- O and K -- on
each object people gave him to send on the train. Still others say a political organization invented
the word. The organization supported Martin Van Buren for president in eighteen forty. They called
their group, the O.K. Club. The letters were taken from the
name of the town where Martin Van
Buren was born — Old Kinderhook, New York. Not everyone agrees with this explanation,
either. But experts do agree that the word is purely American. And it has spread
to almost every country on Earth. Then there is the expression A-OK. This
means everything is fine. A-OK is a space-age expression. It was
used in nineteen sixty-one during the flight of astronaut Alan Shepard. He was the
first American to be launched into space. His flight ended when his spa
cecraft landed
in the ocean, as planned. Shepard reported: "Everything is A-OK.”
However, some experts say the expression did not begin with the
space age. One story says it was first used during the early days of the telephone to tell
an operator that a message had been received. There are also funny ways to say okay. Some
people say okey-dokey or okey-doke. These expressions were first used in the nineteen
thirties. Today, a character on the American television series, “The Simpsons,” say
s
it another way. He says okely-dokely.
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